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History

Where salsa came from: a map, not a birthplace

Ask where salsa was born and you’ll hear three answers, each partly right. The honest version is a map: a rhythm from eastern Cuba, a migration from Puerto Rico, and a city where the two became something new.

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Short answer

Salsa’s rhythmic core comes from Cuban son, along with mambo and rumba [Smithsonian]. It became a genre of its own in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s, played mostly by Puerto Rican musicians who brought in bomba, plena and jíbaro music [Smithsonian; NPS 2023; Hutchinson 2004]. The name “salsa” was sold to the world by Fania Records [Outes-León 2017; EnciclopediaPR].

Why there’s no single birthplace

Cuba gave salsa its rhythm. Puerto Ricans, on the island and in New York, gave it much of its sound, its players and its audience. New York is where the mix became a genre with a name. So “Cuba”, “Puerto Rico” and “New York” are all partly right, and none of them is the whole answer.

People have argued about this since the word was first used for the music. The scholar Sydney Hutchinson argues that New York Puerto Rican musicians started from Cuban son and made it their own, into something that sounds different both from its Cuban sources and from later Cuban styles [Hutchinson 2004]. Tito Puente insisted that what he played was Cuban music, and Celia Cruz reportedly said much the same [NPS 2023; Carnegie Hall]. For further reading on the Puerto Rican side, see Peter Manuel’s 1994 article on Puerto Rico’s “creative appropriation” of Cuban sources [Manuel 1994].

The map

Where salsa came from Cuba → Puerto Rico: Cuba dominated the Latin record business from the 1920s to the 1950s, and Puerto Rico’s music was already intertwined with Cuba’s .; Cuba → New York: Son, mambo and the musicians who played them: Machito’s band, Arsenio Rodríguez (who moved to New York in the 1950s), the mambo Tito Puente absorbed .; Puerto Rico → New York: The migration: about 887,000 Puerto Ricans on the mainland by 1960, most in New York City, bringing bomba, plena and jíbaro music with them .; New York → The world: Fania Records sold the sound under one name, “salsa”, in concerts, films and records . A B C D Cuba son, mambo, rumba Puerto Rico bomba, plena, jíbaro New York 1960s–70s The world from the 1970s Where salsa came from Cuba → Puerto Rico: Cuba dominated the Latin record business from the 1920s to the 1950s, and Puerto Rico’s music was already intertwined with Cuba’s .; Cuba → New York: Son, mambo and the musicians who played them: Machito’s band, Arsenio Rodríguez (who moved to New York in the 1950s), the mambo Tito Puente absorbed .; Puerto Rico → New York: The migration: about 887,000 Puerto Ricans on the mainland by 1960, most in New York City, bringing bomba, plena and jíbaro music with them .; New York → The world: Fania Records sold the sound under one name, “salsa”, in concerts, films and records . A B C D Cuba son, mambo, rumba Puerto Rico bomba, plena, jíbaro New York 1960s–70s The world from the 1970s

Four places, four connections. Each arrow is explained below, with its source.

  1. A Cuba → Puerto Rico: Cuba dominated the Latin record business from the 1920s to the 1950s, and Puerto Rico’s music was already intertwined with Cuba’s [Hutchinson 2004].
  2. B Cuba → New York: Son, mambo and the musicians who played them: Machito’s band, Arsenio Rodríguez (who moved to New York in the 1950s), the mambo Tito Puente absorbed [NPS 2023; LOC: Payne].
  3. C Puerto Rico → New York: The migration: about 887,000 Puerto Ricans on the mainland by 1960, most in New York City, bringing bomba, plena and jíbaro music with them [NPS immigration study; Hutchinson 2004].
  4. D New York → The world: Fania Records sold the sound under one name, “salsa”, in concerts, films and records [Outes-León 2017; EnciclopediaPR].

Timeline

  1. c. 1900–1920sCuba

    Son takes shape in eastern Cuba

    It grows up in Oriente around the turn of the 20th century and is Cuba’s most popular music by the 1920s [Smithsonian; NPS 2023].

  2. 1917Puerto Rico

    Puerto Ricans become U.S. citizens

    The Jones Act makes the island’s people citizens, which shapes everything that follows [NPS immigration study].

  3. 1920s–50sCuba

    Cuba runs the Latin record business

    Which is why so many Caribbean styles reached the world labeled “Cuban” [Hutchinson 2004].

  4. 1930sCuba

    “Échale salsita”

    Ignacio Piñeiro’s son, which the National Park Service calls the first use of the word salsa in Latin dance music [NPS 2023].

  5. 1940sCuba

    Arsenio Rodríguez and the son montuno

    His conjunto, with trumpets and conga, creates the sound salsa grew from [García; NPS 2023].

  6. 1940–1960Puerto Rico

    The great migration

    Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland go from under 70,000 to about 887,000, most of them in New York City [NPS immigration study].

  7. 1947–1966New York

    The Palladium years

    Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez make the ballroom at 53rd and Broadway the center of the mambo [McMains; LOC: Payne].

  8. 1964New York

    Fania Records is founded

    By bandleader Johnny Pacheco and lawyer Jerry Masucci [fania.com; NPS 2023].

  9. 1966–68New York

    Boogaloo

    Latin rhythm with R&B and soul, often in English. Gone by 1969 [Flores].

  10. 1971New York

    The Fania All-Stars at the Cheetah

    August 26. The night was filmed for Our Latin Thing (1972) [fania.com; Carnegie Hall].

  11. c. 1973New York

    “Salsa” becomes the name

    Izzy Sanabria is widely credited with popularizing it as a genre name, and Fania’s marketing takes it worldwide [Outes-León 2017; EnciclopediaPR].

Dates as the sources give them. Where scholars disagree about a decade, the range is shown.

  • Cuba
  • Puerto Rico
  • New York

The rhythm: Cuban son

Son grew up in eastern Cuba around the turn of the 20th century and became Cuba’s most popular music in the 1920s [Smithsonian; NPS 2023]. The sources don’t agree on a single decade for its birth, so we don’t give one.

Most son-based salsa songs have two halves. First comes a song section. Then comes the montuno, where a coro repeats a short refrain and the lead singer, the sonero, improvises answers between the refrains, called soneos [Smithsonian; LOC: Loza]. When you hear the same short phrase come back again and again with the singer answering it, you’re in the montuno.

In the 1940s Arsenio Rodríguez led a conjunto with trumpets and conga and created the son montuno style that salsa grew from [García; NPS 2023]. The conjunto format of that era is the band salsa inherited: piano, tres, bass, bongo, conga, singers who also played hand percussion, and two to four trumpets [Smithsonian].

Puerto Rico’s part

Puerto Rico brought its Afro–Puerto Rican bomba and plena, and jíbaro country music, whose main instrument is the cuatro [Smithsonian]. Rafael Cortijo worked bomba and plena into son montuno [NPS 2023], and Hutchinson counts that, together with Eddie Palmieri’s trombones and Willie Colón’s jíbaro influences, among the changes that made salsa a distinct genre [Hutchinson 2004].

The two islands’ music was intertwined long before New York. Cuba dominated the Latin American record business from the 1920s to the 1950s, which is one reason so many Caribbean styles were sold as “Cuban” [Hutchinson 2004].

Then came the move. Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917. The Puerto Rican population on the mainland grew from under 70,000 in 1940 to more than 300,000 in 1950 and about 887,000 in 1960, and New York City was the main destination [NPS immigration study]. By the late 1960s nearly a million Puerto Ricans lived in the city [Carnegie Hall].

New York: the Palladium, boogaloo, then salsa

From 1947 to 1966 the Palladium Ballroom, at 53rd Street and Broadway, was New York’s most popular Latin dance venue [McMains]. Its Big Three bands were Machito and his Afro-Cubans, Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez [McMains; LOC: Loza]. Puente earned the nickname “King of Mambo” there and shaped his music for its dancers [Hutchinson 2004]. The crowds were mixed: Latinos dancing next to Italian, Jewish, African American and Anglo New Yorkers [LOC: Loza]. Hutchinson also warns that dancers tend to romanticize it, and that other ballrooms shaped “Palladium” mambo too [Hutchinson 2004].

When the Palladium closed, a younger generation raised on R&B made boogaloo: Latin rhythm with soul, often sung in English. It ruled the New York Latin scene from about 1966 to 1968 and had faded by 1969. The scholar Juan Flores called it both a bridge and a break [Flores]. Fania then turned away from it, toward Spanish-language updates of Cuban songs [Carnegie Hall], and that is the music the world came to call salsa.

Where the word “salsa” came from

Several places claim the word, and the evidence for each is different. Here it is, with how strong each piece is.

ClaimWhat the source saysHow strong
Cuba, 1930sIgnacio Piñeiro’s son “Échale salsita” is the first use of the word in Latin dance music [NPS 2023].A U.S. National Park Service history. The recording year isn’t confirmed.
Venezuela, 1962A Caracas radio show, La hora de la salsa, el sabor y el bembé, used the word; Venezuela marks October 5 as its salsa day [Últimas Noticias].One newspaper account.
New York, c. 1973Izzy Sanabria, publisher of Latin NY and designer of many Fania covers, is considered by many the first to use it for the music, on his 1973 TV program [Outes-León 2017].Widely credited, not proven.
Fania’s marketingThe label consolidated the genre and sold it under the name “salsa” from the early 1970s [EnciclopediaPR; Outes-León 2017].Well documented.

So nobody can honestly say who “invented” the word. What’s clear is who made it stick.

What to listen for

  • The clave under everything. The five-stroke pattern from Cuban son is what the whole band lines up to. What the clave tells you.
  • The switch to the montuno. The coro starts repeating a short refrain and the singer answers it. That’s the second half of the song.
  • The instruments of the conjunto. Bongo, conga, piano, bass and trumpets, each with a job. Who plays what.

Questions

Is salsa Cuban or Puerto Rican?

Both, and New York too. Its rhythmic core is Cuban son; it became a named genre in New York in the late 1960s and 1970s, played mostly by Puerto Rican musicians who added their own music to it. Scholars and musicians still argue about how much of it is “just” Cuban music.

Who invented the word salsa?

Nobody can say for sure. The word appears in a Cuban son of the 1930s, a Venezuelan radio show used it in 1962, and in New York Izzy Sanabria is widely credited with popularizing it around 1973. Fania Records’ marketing is what made it the name everywhere.

When did salsa start?

The music grew out of Cuban son, which took shape around 1900. Salsa as a named genre dates from New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Sources

  1. Latin Jazz: Glossary, Smithsonian National Museum of American History
  2. Salsa Is More Than Salsa, Hermán Luis Chávez, U.S. National Park Service, 2023
  3. Arsenio Rodríguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music, David F. García, Temple University Press (publisher’s description)
  4. American Latino Theme Study: Immigration, David G. Gutiérrez, U.S. National Park Service, 2020
  5. Mambo On 2: The Birth of a New Form of Dance in New York City, Sydney Hutchinson, Centro Journal 16(2), 2004
  6. Palladium, Juliet McMains, Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, 2016
  7. Dance Mania—Tito Puente (1958), Jim Payne, Library of Congress National Recording Registry essay
  8. Azucar Pa’ Ti—Eddie Palmieri (1965), Steven Loza, Library of Congress National Recording Registry essay
  9. “Cha Cha with a Backbeat”: Songs and Stories of Latin Boogaloo, Juan Flores (1999), reprinted by the Afro-Latin@ Forum
  10. Salsa Music’s New York Origins and History, Judy Cantor-Navas, Carnegie Hall, 2024
  11. Kinshasa, 1974: Fania All Stars o el imaginario africanista en la salsa neoyorquina de la década de 1970, Brais D. Outes-León, Iberoamericana 66, 2017
  12. Breve historia de la salsa, Hiram Guadalupe Pérez, EnciclopediaPR
  13. Phidias Danilo Escalona le puso nombre a la salsa, Orlando Suárez, Últimas Noticias (Caracas), 2023
  14. History, Fania Records (Craft Recordings)
  15. Puerto Rican Music and Cultural Identity: Creative Appropriation of Cuban Sources from Danza to Salsa, Peter Manuel, Ethnomusicology 38(2), 1994. Cited as further reading; we checked the citation, not the full text.

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